Police investigators told the parents of Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale their daughter “felt close” to those who perpetrated the Columbine High School attack in 1999 and created her own version of the Columbine Tapes.
The investigators told the killer’s parents, Ronald Hale and Norma Hale, that their daughter divulged the information to an unknown physician, according to the transcript of a July 12, 2023, interview The Tennessee Star obtained last month.
After questioning Ronald Hale and Norma Hale about their daughter’s history of suicidal ideation and confirming she experienced suicidal thoughts at least three times and was twice evaluated for commitment because of such ideation, the investigators revealed Audrey Hale was interested in the Columbine attack.
“I couldn’t tell you the physician off the top of my head,” the detective started, explaining that Audrey Hale “felt close to” the Columbine attacks and created her own version of the Columbine tapes.
He explained, “So she saw the documentary for the Columbine shooting and she said something along the lines of how she felt close to them, how she could empathize with them and how they felt. And she went and bought the tapes and the books.”
When Ronald Hale and Norma Hale seemed surprised to learn their daughter expressed an interest in the April 20, 1999 attack on the Columbine High School in Colorado, the detective provided more details.
“She was speaking with a physician or a therapist or someone and said those things,” the investigator explained. He added, “I believe she bought them off Amazon.”
Police documents published by The Star show that Audrey Hale was a 22-year mental health patient at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), where she received treatment from the time she was six years old until she was heroically shot by police after claiming six lives at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023.
During the same interview with MNPD investigators, Ronald Hale and Norma Hale revealed their daughter was diagnosed with five mental disorders as a teenager by an individual who appears to be affiliated with Vanderbilt University and VUMC.
After revealing Audrey Hale expressed an interest in the Columbine attack, the investigator then suggested to Ronald Hale and Norma Hale that their daughter revealed her interest to a doctor, and implied he would like to know whether the parents were present at the time.
The investigator told Ronald Hale and Norma Hale, “I think when she went to Vanderbilt for the ER, she was saying that she wanted a different physician, like she wanted a different therapist or different something along that line.” He stated, “I didn’t know if you guys knew about it.”
Norma Hale replied, “She went to talk to the guy. You know, she talked to him by himself, then I would talk to him.”
At this point, the investigator stated that it seemed Audrey Hale had divulged the information when her parents were not in the room, and Norma Hale confirmed, “I didn’t know anything.”
Audrey Hale briefly mentioned the Columbine attack in the journal police recovered from her vehicle at the Covenant School, which contained about 80 pages and was provided to The Star from a source familiar with the investigation last month.
In an undated entry in which Audrey Hale seemed to consider dates to commit her attack, the killer wrote, “April of ’99” and then the full date “4/20/1999,” which is the date of the Columbine attack. She then wrote the date “4/17/23,” and at the bottom of the entry added, “the year Aiden was born… 3/27/23!”
Born a biological female, Audrey Hale identified as a transgender man at the time of her attack and sometimes used the name Aiden.
Audrey Hale again referenced the date of the Columbine attack in another entry, which directly precedes the March 8, 2023, entry where the killer declared, “I need a trans doctor.”
Near the end of the journal, Audrey Hale wrote in an undated entry, “I want my massacre to end in a way that Eric [and] Dylan would be proud of.” The perpetrators of the Columbine attack were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
Audrey Hale additionally signed this entry A.E., which were the initials she used in another entry that was addressed to the media.
Star News Digital Media, Inc., which both owns and operates The Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy are plaintiffs in the ongoing lawsuits that seek to compel both MNPD and the FBI to release the full writings of Audrey Hale, including those sometimes called a manifesto.
Last month, The Star published an FBI memo that urged MNPD Chief John Drake not to release “legacy tokens” from killers like Hale. An FBI definition suggests the federal agency considers both the approximately 80 pages of Audrey Hale’s writings obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits to be unfit for public release.
The FBI declined to confirm that it sent the memo in a statement to The Star, but the agency confirmed that it sends such “products” to local law enforcement.
Since obtaining Audrey Hale’s writings and a portion of police documents, The Star has published more than 60 articles that include the killer’s own words or provide new details about the Covenant investigation.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
